


Half as Good (media naranja)

by cinnamonsnaps



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 22:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19305469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamonsnaps/pseuds/cinnamonsnaps
Summary: "Right, that's it, Aziraphale suddenly said sharply, voice wobbling. "I'm going to fall."-Crowley is late for a lunch date. Aziraphale has been quietly waiting, but not for him.





	Half as Good (media naranja)

**Author's Note:**

> media naranja means half an orange, or something like "soulmate", in spanish

“You forgot lunch,” Aziraphale said, sounding far too annoyed and petulant for a supposed angel. Crowley paused in the act of pulling up a cheap metal chair and looked around the quiet café.

“No I didn’t.”

“You did. I’ve been sat here for an hour drinking enough tea to irrigate the Kew Gardens.”

Crowley looked at his watch and then back at Aziraphale. “But we said 3.”

“Yes, we did,” Aziraphale said. “It’s 4.”

Crowley stared at his watch, and then the clock on the cafeteria wall, and then hissed with realisation.

“Daylight savings time. I forgot to change my watch.”

“Oh yes, you look so clever now, don’t you. Change the clocks, you said. It won’t affect us, you said.” Aziraphale almost never looked pissed off - Crowley wasn’t sure he had the capability to get truly, really angry at anyone - but tea had a lot of caffeine in it. That did things to a person’s temperament.

He sat heavily in the chair and kicked an insouciant leg over the other. “Me? You helped come up with the idea, didn’t you?”

 

It had, in fact, been a joint invention, a way to foment chaos and bring a little peace to the common man all at the same time. We can let them wake up an hour later, Aziraphale had suggested, and Crowley noted: and think about how shitty it’ll be to wake up an hour earlier at the other end of the year. It had been their bouncing baby brainchild.

It had worked far too well, cancelling each other out so succinctly that there was zero gain for anyone involved.

 

“Oh, whatever,” Aziraphale said with an air of finality. “I should have known you’d be late. More fool me.”

Crowley smiled briefly, said “yes, more fool you,” and quietly held his hand up to the waitress. Aziraphale once again almost looked angry, but he held it in for the sake of the poor woman, who already looked frazzled enough. Aziraphale knew why she was frazzled, because he was an angel, and the story was rolling off her in waves - _no time left got two kids and no income need to buy uniforms need to buy school shoes_ \- and he knew Crowley sensed it too, souring the mood even further, infiltrating their golden hours together with human stress and desperation.

 

Aziraphale ordered more tea, and wondered when the socially acceptable time to pretend to go to the toilet was. Probably three cups in, he'd imagine. Maybe it was too late to go now. Perhaps they'd notice that he hadn't been before.

Crowley ordered a black decaff, because apparently he was in the mood for a little self flagellation.

 

The waitress brought the drinks over, set them down with a brittle smile, and immediately spilled the jug of milk everywhere.

"Oh God," she yelled, and ran to the kitchen for some paper towels.

 

Crowley leaned in with a hiss. "For Hell's sake, angel, can't you do a miracle for her or something? This whole café reeks of despair and it's- I'm not in the mood."

Aziraphale, puzzled and fractious himself, glared back. "What am I supposed to do? Buy her the uniforms?"

"Just cheer her up or something! I'm no good at that, you know I'm not."

Aziraphale muttered, "I'll cheer _you_ up in a minute," as darkly as a chubby blond man with putti cheeks could mutter, but he didn't say no.

When the waitress reappeared, blue paper towels in hand, and started trying to sop up spilt milk from the floor, Aziraphale caught her hand and, consequently, her attention, with a kind smile that radiated sheer calm.

"It's alright, my dear," he said, calmly, like a very calm person. "It's all going to be alright." And lo, so it would be. She would find her money, and her kids would have uniforms and school shoes from Clarks, and the angel of the Lord did smile and pat her hand.

 

The waitress' eyes widened, her expression slack jawed and dreamy. Two fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Oh," she said softly, and then with great feeling:" _Oh_."

"You went too far, look at her," Crowley said, "she's going into rapture."

With chagrin, Aziraphale sheepishly patted her hand again, but she was too busy gazing at him like she'd just watched her first sunset after years of penitent blindness. Her tears splashed onto the table, her mouth hanging open in speechless awe. "There there, no need to cry over... well," he said weakly, "off you trot now, that's enough."

 

And off she did trot, confused, steps wobbly and uncertain, and radiating the deepest kind of fear and profound understanding that she had glimpsed something other, something Unknowable and Loving. She wept because she knew she would never see something so beautiful, so terrifying, so _aweful_ , ever again.

Crowley looked unimpressed.

"Oh shut up," Aziraphale said. "I was distracted."

"Yes, and so's she," he replied, nodding to where she was trying to pour milk into a jug while weeping endless tears and moaning slightly. Aziraphale winced. He did his very best to stay as low profile as possible, but he tended to _leak_.

"She'll be alright in a bit," he grumbled. "Nothing worse than a slight headache and a faint memory after a few minutes of flabbergastation."

 

They sat in prim silence for a moment, before Crowley let out a sigh that signified it was time to start afresh and opened his mouth to speak.

Aziraphale interrupted him. "The Arrangement."

Crowley closed his mouth with a snap. "Uh, yes?"

"Well, it was good, wasn't it." The angel swallowed. "Saved us a lot of time and energy. Given our respective... tasks."

"Well, yeah," Crowley said, playing with his empty coffee cup. "But I reckon we'll be task free, just for a while. Evil never sleeps, et cetera, except for just after a big war which never happened and an invincible demon. So I guess we're... free, pretty much, if only for a while."

"Yes, free," said Aziraphale, and looked very pale. "So... we don't really need the Arrangement anymore."

"No, I 'spose we don't," Crowley said, seemingly unbothered by this revelation. "Wish she'd stop speaking in tongues and come and fetch me another coffee. I know it's decaff but it's the mental effect - the placebo, I think, of the ideal of coffee-"

Aziraphale, who had been biting his tongue opposite him, burst out suddenly: "Well, if that's alright with you then," and then bit his tongue again. Crowley froze.

"Yes?" he said. "Why wouldn't it be? Sounds like a holiday."

"Oh," Aziraphale said, "a holiday. Yes. Right. Because - it's a little overbearing."

Crowley was beginning to sense they were talking at cross purposes here. He trod carefully, like a European boy trying to find a good spot to sunbathe on the beach without uncovering an unexploded landmine. "Yes. Overbearing. I mean, it was constant, wasn't it."

Aziraphale stuttered a little. "Oh, was it? But I thought - well you seemed happy."

"I was happy when we were meeting up and bunking off, of course I was. There's nothing like a good skive to brighten your whole decade."

"Oh. You were happy with... me. Oh." He looked rather pleased, but then a cloud passed over his sunshine face. "But Crowley," Aziraphale said, face pained, "without the Arrangement, we won't have any occasion to meet."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Yes there will. We like each other. That's a constant occasion to meet if you ask me."

The angel of the Lord did something funny when Crowley said that, like he'd simultaneously let go of a heavy burden while taking on a whole new one in return. Crowley watched, fascinated and a little worried, as various emotions flitted across his face like birds coming home to roost: affection, loss, fear, joy, a whole smorgasbord of colours and feelings.

It was a wonder that any creature could have so many feelings in them, except Crowley had met the Brontë sisters. Maybe it wasn't all that unbelievable.

 

"Right, that's it, Aziraphale suddenly said sharply, voice wobbling. "I'm going to fall."

Crowley stared at him. "You're sat down."

"No, I'm going to Fall, capital F. Yes, I'm going to do it."

"No you're not," Crowley interrupted in consternation, but Aziraphale would hear none of it.

"Yes I am. I've been thinking it over and now it's quite clear to me that I am, currently, Falling."

Crowley rose up from his chair, quite alarmed, and looked horribly affronted. "Don't be a silly bugger. You're not going anywhere."

"It's too late!" Aziraphale's mouth was set into a resolute line, even while his eyes sparkled with something approaching terror. "I can feel it even now. Oh, here I go."

"No!" Crowley yelled, and lunged over the table to grab the angel's lapels. "Don't you dare! You're a good, lovely angel and you're right here being all Unknowable and Loving and that kind of thing."

Aziraphale sunk into his chair, spilling out of the sides, his jacket stretching in Crowley's desperate hands. "I succumb to temptation, and I Fall. Oh, how I fall."

Crowley tried yanking him up forcibly, which only resulted in the jacket's seams creaking. "Stop it," he said, "don't, you're making a bloody scene."

 

People in the café were beginning to stare, and Crowley didn't have the wherewithal to avert their gazes by supernatural means - or at least, all he could do was yell _"and what are you_

 _sssstaring at!"_ until their heads whipped forward with military, unnatural precision.

 

Aziraphale didn't answer, his eyes wandering off to stare into the middle distance, his mouth working around words he didn't vocalise, and Crowley was working himself up into a real panic with every passing minute.

"No, look, I'm a big nassssty demon and you're nothing like me! I _Fell_ , angel, the real deal, and you didn't do anything other than stumble a bit. Look, thwart my schemes! I'm about to leave without paying the bill! How awfully insssssidious!"

He got up and left without putting any money on the table, even throwing a middle finger behind him at the slowly weeping, sagging waitress.

 

There was a moment of silence while Aziraphale slowly, slowly slipped off his chair, the waitress whispered in unspoken tongues, and one of the other patrons of the bar loudly, awkwardly slurped their tea.

 

Crowley burst back into the café with a slam.

"For the sake of all that is unholy, Aziraphale, pull yourself together and pay the bill! Look, just get the money out of your pocket and put it on the table!"

He bounded over to Aziraphale's side and puppeteered his hand into his stuffy blazer pocket, pulling out the exact amount of change for ten cups of tea and a disgusting coffee.

"Wow! You thwarted me!" he cried out. "You're a good person! You're not falling, not a bit of it!" Aziraphale did not respond. Crowley fell to his knees and tried to stop him from rolling off the chair. "Please, angel, listen to me, you don't want to fall. You don't want to be cast asunder, not like I was, not like any of us were. I don't want you to feel this, this constant loneliness. Pleassssse, don't fall. I can't lose you, angel."

Aziraphale screwed his eyes up tightly, his face pursing into a crumpled mess.

"It's too late, brother," he said, lowly, and slowly, ominously opened his eyes. "I have Fell."

"Fallen," Crowley said absentmindedly, sniffing away a tear he would deny ever existed, before slowly examining the angel's face, eyebrows furrowing. "... are you sure?"

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, his eyes still dark, but not... Dark dark. Not like demon dark. Just Aziraphale-in-a-funny-mood dark. "... yes," he replied, sounding less sure than he had before. "I have definitely Fallen."

Crowley stared at Aziraphale. Aziraphale stared at the rain beginning to hit the café window.

"... you don't look very demonic to m-"

"Yes, well, I don't expect it happens right away!" Aziraphale snapped.

"Do you... feel any different?"

There was another long pause. Aziraphale concentrated, deeply examining his moral fibre, probing every distant thread of his great interplanar being.

"... yes," he responded, sounding even more unsure.

Crowley groused, "well, how different, on a scale of one to ten?" and the angel did answer, "about a three?"

"Oh, about a three?" Crowley said, standing up, "a whole three out of ten different? Well, there you go then, that's undeniable. Yes, I've always said there's a marked difference between being a holy host to the blessed ssssspirit and being the epitome of evil and chaos, and that difference is _three-_ "

"Alright, alright, don't be sarky with me!" Aziraphale yelled, sounding distressed. "Listen, of course I've fallen, there's no other explanation."

"Explanation for what?"

"For all of this! For me giving away the sword! For making the Arrangement in the first place! Hell, for- for wanting you by my side so dearly and so _acutely_ that even when you're griping at me in a café, I'm still over the moon you're here." He cast his gaze downwards with a sigh so heavy it could sink ships. "Isn't it a sin to covet? And yet here I am. Coveting."

 

Crowley softened. Aziraphale didn't see it, but the air around him warmed - not burned, not boiled, but gently, softly warmed.

Someone in the café let out a dreamy sigh. It might have been Crowley, but he'd kill you if you knew. It was probably the old woman definitely _not_ watching the display, with the same piece of cake on her fork for the past ten minutes.

"It's not coveting if you already have it, you royal berk," Crowley said, and sat in the chair opposite. "So you covet me, hm. Interesting."

"I do," Aziraphale answered, shattering any smug or mocking aura with pure sincerity. "And just now I decided to stop fighting it and Fall."

"And yet..."

 

They finally looked at each other. Crowley managed a snigger. Aziraphale looked at his own hands curiously, before glancing round the café.

"I'm just going to check," he said, and-

 

For a half second, or less than. For quicker than the human eye can register, quicker than any slow motion camera could detect, so quick it almost didn't happen, Aziraphale assumed his true form. Well, not his True True Form, but enough like it that his earthly flesh suit wouldn't combust into tiny dust particles. It was, of course, Unknowable and Loving, so impossible to describe without bursting into tears and being rendered utterly incapacitated. There was the suggestion of wings, and hands, and eyes - far too many for one person, somehow infinite, and yet nothing like wings or hands or eyes at all. Light, of course.

 

The waitress, who had finally recovered and was blowing her nose into a hankie when Aziraphale had manipulated matters so nobody was looking, caught sight of the less-than-anything revelation. Her eyes rolled back in her skull and, with white knuckles, she grabbed the counter in fear and ecstacy.

 

It was so fast that at first Crowley didn't react, but then it hit, and he had to scrunch his eyes up and wince.

"Oh _Jes-_ Chr- holy _shit_ , Aziraphale, warn me next time you - oh, my _eyes_ -"

Aziraphale hummed. It echoed around Crowley's head, and he had to desperately blink away the overwhelming sound of heavenly trumpets and eternal, infinite choirs blasting his eardrums. Afterimages of beautiful hands floated across his vision.

"Oh, you- blassssted- that _hurt-_ "

"It appears I am not actually a demon yet," Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley had to restrain himself from punching him.

"I could have told you that! You - what the heaven was all that about? If I knew you were going to have a midlife crisis I would have suggested going somewhere a little more secluded!"

 

Aziraphale gathered up the change and wandered over to the till to pay. He peered over the formica.

The waitress lay on the other side, hands twitching around nothing.

"I'll just leave it here, then," he said, and put it in a dish.

Her mouth foamed at the edges.

 

As they walked side by side aimlessly through the wet London streets, Crowley reached out and grabbed Aziraphale's shoulder.

"This isn't going to happen every time we finally acquiesce that we may, slightly, perhaps not totally dislike each other, will it? I don't know if I can handle you Falling every time I slip up and say something silly like, oh, you look nice today."

Aziraphale shook his head. "No, I think it's out of my system. I suppose... well, I suppose this counts as love, doesn't it."

Crowley wisely said nothing, but the air was warm again. The rain started to clear up, just a little.

 

Something occurred to him. "Hang about, sweetheart, you said 'yet' earlier," he said, trailing behind Aziraphale a little. "What do you mean yet."

"I fancy," Aziraphale said into open air, "a good korma tonight. A nice mango one."

"No, wait," Crowley said, running to catch up, "what about that yet-"

 

* * *

 

 

**_I SAW GOD: Woman experiences a religious vision in café_ **

 

 _Rona Regis, 36, claims she had a religious experience in her workplace, saying that an_ **_angel_ ** _revealed itself to her while she was cleaning the coffee filter._

_Speaking in an exclusive interview, Regis said: "It was beautiful, I couldn't believe it. I looked up and saw bright light, and then when I recovered, it had disappeared-_

  


Crowley put down the Sun - Hell's second favourite - and looked up at where Aziraphale stared, unseeing, at his book.

 

"Angel..." he said, cautiously. "Are you still worrying about it?"

"About what?" Aziraphale answered, turning to look at Crowley and blink. Crowley wrinkled his nose.

"You know. The fuss you made in the café."

Aziraphale looked back at his book. "No sense worrying, I realised. It will happen or it won't. I can't seem to stop myself from... indulging, so it's only a matter of time. I just thought." He looked up from the book and stared out the window, looking beyond the overcast sky. "I thought I might hurry along the process a little."

Crowley bit back half a bitter laugh. "You don't just decide to Fall," he said, and stopped when he heard himself. "Well, alright, some do, granted the deciding part was a pretty large part of- look, that's not the point. What I meant was that you don't Fall just from saying you're going to Fall. There's a large mechanism behind it. You've got to be asking all sorts of wrong questions, or doing all the wrong things, or acting against your very nature, or something."

Aziraphale's face fell. "I've been doing all those things."

"Get out of it," Crowley said, but Aziraphale responded rather desperately, "I'm serious! Asking questions like _well is this really the plan_ , shacking up with a demon, enjoying sushi - oh, the _look_ Gabriel gave me - it all adds up. I'm expecting to tumble head over heels any day now, have been since the forties."

"Which forties? The fun ones?"

"There has never been a fun forties, Crowley, and we both know that."

"You're being silly. I had a great time in the 1040s-"

"Yes, you were gallivanting around with that insufferable Macbeth."

 

Crowley had come back with a thick Scottish accent, which Aziraphale promptly banned in a fit of rather petty vengeance - yet another sin to add to the list - and the matter was only smoothed over when they shared an evening laughing over the many inaccuracies of Shakespeare's take on the whole story.

 

Crowley sauntered over and peeked over Aziraphale's shoulder at the book - oh dear - and gently read the first line that popped out at him.

 

_Whenever you see a mirror - it's only human - you want to look at yourself..._

 

Aziraphale hadn't gotten more than a few pages in before getting distracted. Crowley couldn't blame him, it looked like a thick chunk of overly referential intellectual posturing, but it still gave him some idea of what may have distracted his angel so.

"You may have done some things, but they weren't wrong, couldn't have been, because you would have Fallen by now. In fact, I think you fell already," Crowley said, and Aziraphale stiffened under him. "But only halfway. You didn't fall all the way below, only to London, which is half as bad."

There was a nervous chuckle beneath him, which solidified into something more genuine, warmer.

"By that logic, you ascended, though only halfway. Not quite to Heaven, but to London, which is half as good."

"Then I think it's fine if I tempt you, but only halfway, like a human would, and you let yourself love me, but only halfway-"

"Yes, I get it, like a human would." Aziraphale was smiling now, looking up at his demon with rosy cheeks. "Very deep. You couldn't handle my full love, anyway. You'd turn into a pillar of salt or something silly like that."

"Well, I actually Fell, didn't I. I'm not supposed to go around experiencing real actual angelic love. You're lucky I wasn't just a pile of seasonings after that silly stunt in the café."

Aziraphale had the gall to look completely unashamed. "I had to check," he said primly, and turned back to his book.

 

And that was that. Crowley noted that whatever half of Aziraphale's love meant, there was nothing halfway about how they felt for each other. He gave Aziraphale a kiss on the top of his head and collapsed on the sofa again, picking up the Daily Mail (Hell's first favourite).

Perhaps, he noted privately, they were both a whole three different in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> the book he's failing to read is from Foucault's Pendulum, from a passage complaining that convex mirrors are a bit of a conceptual let down when you see them as the culmination of several millenia of good hard work


End file.
